REVIEW: Samling Academy's The Party, The Glasshouse
Why Gatsby gig was great
The singers of the Samling Academy never disappoint and The Party, celebrating 30 years of the charity which set it up, certainly matched its billing.
Taking as its inspiration the extravagant parties described in The Great Gatsby, it brought the 1920s ‘jazz age’ back to life in Sage Two at The Glasshouse.
How did she keep that kiss curl in place, my wife asked Academy mezzo-soprano Anna May Forbes, dressed (as were all) to the nines.
“Lots of hairspray,” came the reply just before Sid Ramchander, pianist and music director, sparked things into life.
This was an evening of words and music as well as a feast for eyes and ears. It was kiss curls and pearls for the girls, white tie and tails – even spats - for the lads.
Oh, and Pierrot costumes for the clowning couple (Isabella Shea and Sam Ryan) who would come into their own in a scene from The Boyfriend.
In Saturday’s audience – for the first of the two performances – was movement director Desirée Kongerød, teacher at the Royal College of Music and also yoga specialist, contortionist and one half of comedy magic duo Norvil & Josephine.
The Samling Institute for Young Artists, Hexham-based and now three decades old, is supremely well connected.
Departing from the usual concert format, this was a theatrical affair with the performers mingling with audience members at cabaret-style tables and generally moving around the space.
The contortionist presumably having worked her magic in rehearsal, the action flowed from song to song, mood to mood. No-one (at least on Saturday) collided or even spilled a drink.
For this special concert, the current Academy cohort were joined by past members Camilla Harris and Zoë Jackson, young sopranos now forging successful singing careers.
Camilla, a former Durham University student, performed in a Samling Academy opera in 2015 and recently sang Musetta in La bohème at Glyndebourne.
We got a thrilling taste of that when she reprised the role to close the first half of the concert with Quendo m’en vo, known as Musetta’s Waltz.
Zoë, from Sunderland, one-time head chorister at Durham Cathedral, also showed why she receives glowing reviews, performing with tenor Ted Black in a scintillating duet from Verdi’s La traviata.
Black is one of the swelling band of Samling Artists, a title bestowed on those promising early career singers who attend Samling’s intensive masterclass weeks, which he did in 2021.
Sid Ramchander is a Samling Artist, too, as is influential director Miranda Wright who coaches many of the region’s most promising young singers and is a key member of the Samling team.
The weekend programme took us from Eric Coates’ Bird Songs at Eventide to Noël Coward’s I went to a marvellous party – and this via Verdi, Purcell, Handel, Kurt Weill and many others, with passages from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel and other textual snippets to keep the narrative flowing as smoothly as the drink.
Applause for all was richly deserved and offstage glasses will surely have been raised to Karon Wright who, as founding artistic director and chief executive, has been keeping the Samling boat afloat for all of those 30 years.
The concert was dedicated to the memory of North East entrepreneur and businessman Roger McKechnie MBE who, with Karon, set up the Samling Institute for Young Artists in 1996.
Thousands of young people have benefited from the charity, whether as a path to a musical career, as in the case of Camilla and Zoë, or simply as an enriching experience.
It is great to see young talent develop and progress and the weekend’s special concerts were an enjoyable demonstration of all that has been achieved.
Because Samling receives no regular grant aid, and nor does it have an endowment, it has launched a 30th anniversary appeal, the aim being to raise £30,000 to keep the good work going.
Here, finally, are the young singers not previously mentioned who also contributed to a thoroughly enjoyable occasion.
They were Helen Christian, Imogen Payne, Olivia Rose, Josephine Sim, Madeleine Hague, Davina Halford-Macleod, Margretta Ibrahim, Jeannot Gantier-Houston, Yohan James and Fabian Tindale Geere.